One Mistake
by FanFictionFan9876
Summary: An accident in the Garage puts Walter and Ralph in the hospital. But someone from Walter's past is determined to seek revenge. The team race to protect Walter and Ralph before it's too late (T for safety).
1. Prelude

A/N: As always I don't own the characters or anything to do with Scorpion. Just a bit of fun.

In the weeks and months after Walter's death defying escape from the edge of the cliff, Team Scorpion returned to their normal. When Paige had phoned Drew and told him that they weren't moving to Portland, he had gotten angry. Sylvester, without saying anything, thought that Drew was far too predictable.

Following Walter's release from hospital, life for the team fell into a nice routine. Homeland, the FBI, NSA and CIA all called on Scorpion's services. Even without his Homeland Security badge, Cabe was extremely useful. He kept the Director of Homeland Security in check, and Scorpion benefitted from Cabe's special knowledge of government agency protocol.

His and Walter's relationship improved significantly after the cliff incident. They spent hours talking at the hospital, revealing every little secret both had kept from each other. When they'd exhausted their secret-keeping, they started to build a fresh relationship. Tentative at first, it soon blossomed into a stronger friendship than anything that they had before.

One day, Toby walked in on Walter tinkering with the rocket ship. It was nearly finished.

"I thought you were done with piece of junk," Toby quipped, before taking a small sip of coffee. "You've been working on that thing for months."

"I know," Walter muttered absently. He was trying to fix a particular part, and Toby's gaze was putting him off. "You mind?"

"Snappy," Toby replied condescendingly, but he turned around and walked to his desk, all the same.

The garage door opened and Paige and Ralph slipped inside. Toby checked his watch. They were earlier than usual. Only by a little, but still earlier.

Ralph immediately raced up the stairs and over to Walter, who wordlessly handed him a wrench. Paige followed him upstairs at a more leisurely pace. She stopped and leaned on a book shelf and watched them. Even without communication, they were still on the same wavelength. Walter, feeling Paige's gaze on top of his head, looked up.

His hand carried on tightening a nut with a wrench. As she flashed him a smile, his hand slipped, but his brain didn't seem to notice. After a split second, his brain kicked into gear and he looked down. He pulled his hand out of the machine and stepped back.

"Now, Ralph, if I switch this on, fuel is going to race into the engine and that will…" Walter tailed off hopefully.

"It will start a chain reaction leading to movement," Ralph finished, as he examined the engine closely. "Walter, I don't think this is right…"

"It is," Walter replied absently looking into Paige's soft brown eyes, and he pressed a button.

There was a massive bang, and Walter's attention was immediately drawn to the engine. He could instantly see what the problem was. The fuel line wasn't attached properly. The last thing he had to do, and he hadn't done it properly. Seeing the effects of his mistake pan out in his head, he raced over to Ralph, and pulled him away as it exploded.

The force of the explosion's shockwave blasted the upper floor. Paige was bowled over, but Ralph and Walter took the brunt of it. Walter cradled Ralph protectively as they landed, and he pulled Ralph's face to his chest as searing chards of shrapnel sliced at their skin. A dull thud sounded and he looked down. The force of their fall had carried Ralph out of his arms and across the floor. Even in a dazed and confused state, Walter could see that the child was hurt pretty bad.

As he blinked heavily, trying to staying conscious, he saw Toby examining him. He was talking but Walter couldn't hear. Darkness took him.


	2. Chapter 1

Walter's eyes fluttered open, but his brain was still fuzzy.

"Where's Ralph," he groaned and tried to sit up.

"Woah, woah, woah," Walter heard and his eyes closed as he was pushed gently back onto the bed.

"Where's Paige?" His voice was still groggy.

"Walter, calm down. They're fine." It was the same voice from before. "You're in hospital."

"Toby," he whispered, and his eyes fluttered open. Toby's smiling face swam into view.

"Yeah, it's me, buddy," Toby grinned. "You're okay. So's Ralph and Paige. We're all here."

Walter looked around him and saw Happy, Sylvester and Cabe, but didn't see Ralph or Paige.

"Where are they?"

"Paige is with Ralph. He took a nasty bump to the head, but he should be fine." Happy had answered the question, and she grinned down at him.

"What happened?"

"The engine exploded. We think it was a fault with the electrical system that caused a chain reaction when it was doused with fuel." This time it was Sylvester that had answered.

"No," Walter replied as firmly as he could. "I insulated the electrical systems properly. Unless fuel was poured directly onto bare circuits…"

"What are you saying Walter?" Cabe asked, his frown deepening.

"Something else must have gone wrong."

Walter's phone pinged. Toby picked it up, and handed it to Walter. As he tried to focus on the phone, it's screen becoming less blurry with each blink. The sight of what was on the screen made his blood run cold. He dropped the phone and it bounced on the bed, before falling to the floor and smashing.

"What is it?" Happy asked, Walter's face was deathly white.

"This is all my fault."

His words were whispered, but they all heard him. As one they spoke, reassuring him that it wasn't his fault, and that it was an accident.

"No," he shook his head, and they silenced. "It is my fault. I started this."

"Walter, what do you mean?" Cabe asked.

"It's Glen Morrison."

"Who's Glen Morrison?" Sylvester looked as confused as Happy and Toby did. Cabe, on the other hand, went as white as Walter.

"How? I thought he was in a maximum security CIA prison," Cabe breathed. Happy, Toby and Sylvester looked between them.

"He must have got out," Walter winced as he propped himself up.

"You got two broken ribs there, Walter," Toby told him. "Oh, and a concussion and a punctured but repaired lung. You might want to take it easy."

"Who is Glen Morrison?" Happy snapped loudly.

"Glen Morrison was Scorpion's first employee… Partner, whatever," Cabe said. "Walter let him loose when he threatened to destabilise the U.S. Government. Walter reported him to the CIA, and Morrison never took a deal. He's been locked up in an off-the-books CIA containment facility ever since."

"I thought I was the first?" Sylvester asked.

"You were when I decided to be more selective about the people who work for Scorpion," Walter replied. "Scorpion is technically Scorpion Two point Oh. You were the first I hired. Then Happy. Then Toby. Then Paige."

"What about Cabe?"

"I was never an employee. I am a former government liaison," Cabe replied gruffly. "Now I am, right?"

"Yeah," Walter replied off-handedly, and Cabe chuckled. "Where are Paige and Ralph?"

"Ralph took a blow to the head. He's still out of it. Paige is with him. She's come to see you. I suspect she'll be here as soon as we tell her you're awake," Toby half-grinned at him.

"Ralph's still unconscious?"

"His doctor has put him in a coma. He hit his head pretty hard. You saved his life. If you hadn't pulled him away, he'd have died," Happy said.

"So, if this Glen Morrison is supposed to be in a CIA prison, and will never be released, how did he manage to do all this?" Sylvester asked, following the previous conversation. They looked at him. "What?"

"He's right," Walter replied. "If he's still in prison, how did he manage to nearly kill me and Ralph? I am the target."

"I've got a couple of contacts in the CIA, I'll call them and ask if Morrison is still in custody," Cabe said, as he pulled his phone out and left the room.

"Are you sure that this is Glen Morrison?" Happy asked, and Walter nodded.

"My phone was sent a message. It was Scorpion's first logo. Only he and I know what it was."

"We'll go back to the garage and figure out how the engine exploded," Happy said, and she pulled Sylvester and Toby out of the room.

Walter sighed distractedly. His phone was in pieces on the floor, and was now alone. Memories of his first meeting with Morrison kept filling his mind. Dwelling on the chance meeting as young adults, Walter didn't notice the small knock on the door.

"You're awake," the doctor remarked, pulling Walter from his reverie.

"Apparently," came the snide retort. The doctor flashed him a look.

"Mr O'Brien, you suffered a concussion, two broken ribs and a punctured lung…"

"My friend has already told me what happened to me," Walter snapped at the red-headed woman. She merely raised an eyebrow.

"Your friend has told you?"

"He's a doctor. Graduated at seventeen from Harvard. Specialist in human psychology."

"A psychologist told you what was wrong with you?"

"A psychologist with a higher IQ than Einstein," Walter snapped. "With in human psychology and neurology. I'd suspect he's more qualified than you."

The doctor took his rudeness in her stride.

"The accident that hospitalised you was severe. You were lucky not to be killed."

"There's no such thing as luck," quipped Walter dryly.

"The child brought in with you, wasn't as lucky," she carried on, as if she hadn't heard him. "We've had to induce a coma to protect his higher brain function. He broke a rib and fractured his arm. The blast gave him third degree burns to his forearms. He's going to be okay, and when we see signs of improvement, we'll take him out of the coma. As his father…"

"I'm not Ralph's father," Walter replied shortly. The doctor stopped, an awkward look on her face.

"But, you're the secondary contact on his admission form…"

"I'm…" Walter stopped not knowing quite how to explain. "Ralph's a genius. I'm his… Mentor."

"Okay," she replied slowly.

"Is his mom okay?" Walter asked.

"She's fine," she answered him lifting pages on her chart. "Just a couple of bruises and burns. Nothing serious. She's with her son now."

"Got that," Walter replied.

"Now, get some rest and I suppose your friends will be back later." She hugged the chart and looked at him sternly. "Seriously, Mr O'Brien. Rest. I can increase your morphine if the pain gets too much."

"It's fine," he grunted as he eased himself under the covers.

She slowly exited the room and closed the door. Walter closed his eyes, and tried to sleep, but his worry for Ralph and memories of Morrison kept his mind from shutting down. It could have been minutes or hours later, he didn't know, but he heard a soft knock on the door.

Deducing that it was the doctor returning, he kept his eyes closed. It opened and, after a slight pause, closed. He could feel the person getting closer to him. They quietly pulled up a chair, and Walter could smell a hint of peaches.

 _Paige_ , he thought. He opened his eyes.

"You're awake," she smiled down at him warmly.

"How's Ralph?" Walter asked immediately.

"He's fine," Paige replied. "They're taking him out of the coma now. Cabe's with him."

She paused for a slight second.

"What happened?"

Her tone wasn't accusatory, as he had been expecting, but it was more curious.

"We think it's Glen Morrison."

"Who's Glen Morrison?"

Walter retold the story of what happened between himself and Morrison.

"So he wants revenge?"

"Apparently," Walter sighed. "I received a message on my phone that could have only been from him."

He pointed down at the smashed remains of his phone.

"What was it?"

"Scorpion's first logo." Walter found the repetitiveness of the conversation irksome, but, for Paige's sake, he didn't show it. "After we stopped working together, I removed the logo. I felt that it would be inappropriate for the new Scorpion to have one."

"What was it?"

"A red scorpion," Walter replied dryly. "As it is common for big businesses to use logos, we thought that it would be prudent to do the same. The aims for Scorpion were far different back then. We aimed to make a lot of money using our brains."

"You still make money using your brains," Paige noted with a smile.

"Not quite the same way," Walter clarified. "We thought that large amounts of money were possible. Business were going to be falling over themselves for our expertise."

"But, now you help people," she observed with a wry smile.

"Yes. All because of Cabe," Walter relaxed a little as he lay back. "If it weren't for him, I and the rest of Scorpion would be struggling to pay debts, and you'd probably be still a waitress."

"So, why now?"

"Why now, what?"

"Why is this Morrison guy getting revenge for something that happened years ago, now?"

"I suspect he's had to wait because he was stuck in an off-the-books CIA prison. He's probably just managed to break out."

"Wouldn't it be all over the news if this guy escaped a prison?" The look on Walter's face made her feel extremely foolish. "Sorry."

"The CIA aren't about to release the fact that an escaped convict from a secret and highly illegal prison is on the loose. He could bring down the CIA with one laptop."

"How?"

"He probably knows a lot of information the CIA would like to keep quiet. He's an expert hacker. Sometimes I thought that not even I was as good as him."

"So if he's really out…"

"We're in big trouble," Walter finished solemnly.


End file.
